Tag Archives: Bill’s mom

Down From Dover

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It’s a late Friday posting. And what a day it’s been. No word from Harpy all day so I guess I’m on his shit list. I couldn’t tell you if it’s a long list or a short list or even if there is a list at all.

Still he’s back in the good graces of Susan and so I guess I’m out of his good graces, or graces period. A gray cloud of Harpiness hung overhead through most of my day.

I did enjoy sleeping until 9:00 this morning, woke up checked some email and found I had a new T Mobile bill. A bill that is over twice the usual amount. Apparently according to them I went over my 600 anytime minutes.

I suppose that was possible since there was a few long calls with Harpy before 9:00 and I found out today that mobile to mobile calls aren’t free. And a few long calls with my brother Frank during daytime hours too.

Plus a $9.99 text charge which more than likely came from the ‘IQ’ test I took via Facebook and had the answer sent to my phone. Apparently having an ‘IQ’ of ‘145’ isn’t smart enough to outfox a texting scam like that so be forewarned and learn from my mistake.

So a part of my morning was arguing with Tiffany and Chris from T Mobile. Actually there was no arguing, it was me venting as I drank my first cups of coffee and Chris and Tiffany thanking me and apologizing.

It was a drizzly gray morning as I did my laundry which now hangs on racks and in the bathroom drying in the dampness. I had a plan to meet up with Mr. & Mrs. Casey Chasm this afternoon. Casey Chasm asked if I liked lasagna and I said I sure did.

Around 1:30 it was still drizzling out as I headed over to the Chasm residence. It wasn’t so bad when I left my building but as I walked a few doors up the block, the sky opened up and I reached for my umbrella which didn’t do any good besides keeping my upper torso and head relatively dry.

Everything below the waist was wet. I needed to run to CVS and when I left CVS it was still pissing out. I decided the best thing to do would be to head home since the sneakers, socks and blue jeans I was wearing were quite soaked. Up four flights of stairs for a quick change and then I was out on the street again where it had stopped raining.

I hung out with Mr and Mrs Chasm, chatting. They even got me to play Wii which I did for the first time. I did good on bowling, on tennis I won over Mr Chasm though Mrs Chasm wiped the virtual tennis courts with Johnno’s body.

Then came boxing and it wasn’t foxy boxing to my chagrin. Casey Chasm went easy on me but my left uppercut was most ineffectual which was understandable since I didn’t think an uppercut was actually possible.

He set the Wii for training after a practice round, me throwing punches all arms akimbo, Casey Chasm all tight and controlled. I was getting hungry, looking forward to some lasagna when Bill called.

His mother was being moved from Beth Israel hospital to a center on Roosevelt Island. He asked if I could go with him and of course I said yes. I made a hasty exit from the Chasm abode and on my way home had a slice of lackluster pizza which while filling couldn’t compare to homemade lasagna.

I went home again, up four flights again and unloaded some crap and got some new crap. I needed something to read since I was going to be back on the bus on a late afternoon on Friday.

That meant some rush hour traffic which like last time, brought me closer to 34th street rather than 42nd street where the bus terminal is. Two other passengers and myself persuaded the drive to let us off on 35th street and I once again navigated the crowds milling towards either the bus terminal or Penn Station.

I got to Bill’s office building and he came down a minute or so later. We then caught an F train to Roosevelt Island. The plan was to have Bill and I there at the facility when he mother arrived, to have two friendly faces to make her transition a little bit easier.

We got there a little after 6:00 and waited for nearly two hours when we found out that Bill’s mother wasn’t going to be transferred tonight after all. Bill handled that news admirably and we had a pleasant walk to the Tram which we took back to Manhattan.

I had never been to Roosevelt Island so I took a few snapshots.

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from the Tram

from the Tram


We got off the Tram on 59th street and would have walked back to the bus terminal smoking our cigars, but of course that wasn’t going to happen since it was raining once again. We rode the subway to the bus terminal and caught a waiting bus. And now we’re here. The day ended better than it began oddly enough.

Where are you?

It’s Tricky

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Tuesday evening. A little drizzly outside but it’s ok. I’m happy that Bill will be staying here tonight in Hoboken. His mom was put in Beth Israel hospital for observation. It was the doctor’s idea. Bill wasn’t able to handle what was going on with her and this option seems to be the best for all concerned.

I guess it’s selfish of me to want Bill home with me, but it’s been a few months that he’s actually spent the night here. Bill’s mother won’t be wandering around on the street as she’s been doing the past week.

Last night I saw Watchmen with Harpy and it was enjoyable despite a crying baby midway through the showing. Who would bring an infant to an R rated movie? Idiots, that’s who. Then towards the end of the movie, I thought it was odd that Tubular Bells (the theme from the Exorcist) was part of the soundtrack.

It actually wasn’t. It was Harpy’s cellphone. He turned it off at the beginning of the movie as we were instructed but unbeknownst to Harpy, even though the cellphone is off the alarm will still go off regardless. That was funny and embarrassing.

I forgot most of the details since I had read the original comic books 22 years ago when they were first issued. Rand had gotten me an issue a month for my birthday. It was a complicated plot, not your average comic book superhero stories.

But from what I gathered and from what Harpy told me it was basically faithful to the original. ‘The most fucking amazing job’ Harpy just told me on the phone about the movie. I’d take a gander at the issues I had but I usually avoid issues from my past and these issues were lost in a few moves.

They could be floating around Lodi or possibly in a garbage dump, sorry Rand. Harpy is presently on the phone, raving about it more today than he did last night.

Last Friday when I was off work and before things got screwy I watched a little bit of Martha Stewart’s TV show. He guest was Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest. As they were making whatever it was they were making, Martha asked Q-Tip who his music publisher was and he replied that he was his own publisher, which is a smart move.

The money that’s made in music is generally through publishing, other artists singing your songs. But the thing is, who covers Rap & Hip Hop songs? No one really. A rapper usually raps about their life experience or a story, and the few instances I can think of are Duran Duran covering White Lines by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Tricky covering Slick Rick’s Children’s Story.

That’s about it for Rap covers I can think of. Young MC also wrote Wild Thing and Funky Cold Medina for Tone Loc but thats as far as that got. I’m sure there is a novelty record out there with Sonic Youth or someone else covering Baby’s Got Back. Filed under ‘Ironic’.

Work today was ok. Greg Stevens still in Arizona, Vivek somewhere in the southeast with his partner working on some new project, and Tom Chin has been quite nice lately, perhaps due to his retirement which I guess will be at the end of the month. I had to go to New Zealand Town, I mean, Chinatown to pick up some business cards for Vivek’s partner.

It was enjoyable to be out of the office and I got off the train at Bleecker Street and walked down Broadway to Howard Street in Chinatown. And like last night with Harpy stepping on my dress shoes, some neck bone stepped on my right foot at the corner of Prince Street. I of course gave him ‘the look’ which caused the neck bone to apologize profusely.

Still no word from my landlord about me cleaning up the hallways and the front of the building which is overrun with recyclables for the third week. All I’m asking is for a rent reduction of maybe $100.00 (which I never mentioned to the landlord) rather than him paying hundreds of dollars a month to a maintenance company that is supposed to clean the hallway but haven’t been here in months, or the moron down the street who’s supposed to move the recyclables and the trash to the curb.

I did take some pictures of the mess which I’ll include with the next rent check. Sooner or later he’ll get a ticket for having the front of the building in such an untidy state.

On my downtown travels, I looked into what was Farfetched amd took some pictures. I couldn’t see inside and this is what the camera picked up.

Farfetched?

Farfetched?

Recyclables

Recyclables